I shook my head, spending all of my fortitude to keep my eyes open when all I wanted to do was lay back on the table and hold myself open for Ronan. The man I’d fallen in love with was back.
Chapter Nine
Ronan
Three Months Later
The past few months had proven to be a test of my ability to concoct creative and sadistic scenarios for Kevin, but things between us were better than ever, so I must have been doing something right. He’d initially balked at the idea of things being 24/7 between us, but the more we’d talked, the more he’d warmed to the idea. It hadn’t taken much for him to agree, and while I’d fully anticipated he would have told me to stop, he never did. Kevin fell into the role and the expectations that came with it like a natural.
Like I’d been right all along.
I’d never had the intention to collar and chain him for twenty-four hours a day. That wasn’t practical. He had a job; we had lives. When we met a year before, I’d told him I didn’t have the time or the inclination for a 24/7 relationship and, at the time, that had been true. My understanding of that dynamic had been the thing Kevin feared, but the longer we were together, the more our relationship had grown, the more I realized all the ways it could work for us. The ways it already did work for us, even if we didn’t call it that.
I’d started small, reminding him to do things for me that he already did. Coffee in the morning, food if I was coming home from a late shift, laundry… I’d added some small things on to see how they were received. If I was home on the weekend, Kevin was to wash me in the shower, he was to let me pick his clothes, if I even allowed him clothes.
The first weekend I kept him naked, he’d scoffed at me, then sobered when he realized I was serious. Having him with no clothes, only leather cuffs around his wrists and ankles, seemed to instill a sense of service in him, and Kevin had been more dutiful than I’d ever seen—all “Yes, Ronan,” and “No, Ronan,” with his downcast eyes and skyward pointing cock.
He clearly liked it, and so had I.
It wasn’t something we did every weekend, as I didn’t want the novelty to wear off, but I’d been coming up with new and inventive ways to drive him wild. Admittedly, I liked them too. I’d always known I could play hard with him, but I’d been able to take things to another level since our discussion, and I had big plans for that man.
Thanksgiving, for example, I’d trussed him up on the dining room table and basted him. Seeing him with his knees bound toward his armpits, his ass gaping open for me while I fed us both the meal he’d cooked earlier in the afternoon had been…something I hadn’t expected to enjoy, but I had.
I really had.
Then, in December, Foster had gone through with his ridiculous idea to host an auction at Rapture to find himself a play partner, and then on New Year’s weekend, he’d vanished on us without a word. He’d turned off his phone, promising to let Rich and me know when he got home, but didn’t give us any more information. It was so much like him that I wasn’t surprised, but that didn’t do anything to stifle my worries about his welfare. Two days into the new year, he messaged to let us know he was safe, then went back into radio silence.It would be a lie to say that Foster’s absence hadn’t put a damper on my interest or ability to play hard with Kevin, but I’d been distracted by my friend’s behavior and if I knew anything about being a dom, it was tonotplay when I wasn’t fully focused.
January was nearing its end and Rich and I had finally coaxed Foster out of hiding. I felt comfortable bringing out a play idea I’d been sitting on since I’d fucked Kevin on the table after Thanksgiving dinner. We’d all agreed to meet for a casual happy hour at the condo, which was perfect because I needed Kevin home for this scene.
“Do you think we can try that new tapas place downtown?” Kevin asked, fingering through his shirts in the back of the closet.
“Hmn?” I slid open the drawer in our dresser that held our most commonly used toys, plucking out a spider gag and joining him.
“The tapas place.” He turned to look at me, hopeful eyes bright behind the lenses of his glasses.
“Maybe.” I held up the gag, the steel cradled around the crook of my pointer finger. “You have other plans, though.”
“What?”
I raised a finger to my mouth, shushing him. “Kevin, tables don’t talk.”
“What?” he said again.
“Tables.” I took a step closer. “Don’t.” I raised the gag toward his mouth. “Talk.”
Without protest, he opened his mouth and I eased the steel behind his teeth, fastening the leather strap behind his head with a secure sounding latch of the metal tine.
Once the gag was settled, I worked open the fly of his pants and shoved them down, leaving him in a pair of tight black briefs that left little to the imagination. I grabbed his ass, hauling him forward so our chests crashed together.
“Were you trying to tempt me?” I asked, sliding my fingers under the elastic of his underwear, feeling the marks I’d left on his ass days before. That was one perk to our relationship now—Kevin was almost always marked, nearly always bruised, carrying proof of his devotion to me on a daily basis. I shoved his underwear down. He mumbled something through the gag that was indecipherable. It didn’t sound happy, which was perfect.
“Rich and Sam and Foster are coming over,” I said, pinching the backs of his thighs between my fingers. “Are you okay with them seeing you like this?”
Kevin’s throat flushed and he nodded.
“Are you okay with them seeing you on your hands and knees?” I pressed, dragging my hands around to his front.
He nodded again.
